Issue |
E3S Web Conf.
Volume 98, 2019
16th International Symposium on Water-Rock Interaction (WRI-16) and 13th International Symposium on Applied Isotope Geochemistry (1st IAGC International Conference)
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | 01044 | |
Number of page(s) | 6 | |
Section | Geological Evolution of Water-Rock System: Mechanisms, Processes, Factors, Stages. The Session Dedicated to Stepan Shvartsev’s Memory | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/e3sconf/20199801044 | |
Published online | 07 June 2019 |
Post-mining groundwater geochemistry evolution in on the Levikha sulfide deposits of the Middle Urals (Russia)
The Institute of Mining, Ural Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Mamin-Sibirjak str. 58, 620075, Ekaterinburg, Russia
* Corresponding author: luserib@mail.ru
Mining of volcanogenic copper pyrite deposits of the Middle Urals leads to the rock disintegration, their grinding, increasing the interaction surface. Sulfide minerals are oxidized by interaction with oxygen-enriched meteoric water and secondary minerals are formed (crystallo-hydrates of sulphates, hydroxides). Here technogenic zone hypergene (sulfuric acid weathering crust) is being formed. Once the water pumping activities are finished, the piezometric level recovers its position decreasing the unsaturated zone created during the mining activity, this increases the water-rock ratio increasing the amount of suppliers of sulphates, iron, non-ferrous metals and other elements to groundwater. It defines a low rate of rehabilitation of mining areas after the completion of mining and cessation of dewatering. The regularities of acidic water formation after filling the depression cone are investigated on the abandoned copper mines of the Middle Urals (Russia). The longevity of formation of extremely acidic and polluted waters is determined by the degree of saturation of the supergene zone with secondary minerals and the intensity of water exchange. Seasonal decrease in the component’s concentrations t in the period of winter and summer low water was recorded. The unstable character of groundwater components changes with a half-life of more than 5 thousand days is established. The duration of rehabilitation and restoration of groundwater quality will be at least a hundred years.
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2019
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Current usage metrics show cumulative count of Article Views (full-text article views including HTML views, PDF and ePub downloads, according to the available data) and Abstracts Views on Vision4Press platform.
Data correspond to usage on the plateform after 2015. The current usage metrics is available 48-96 hours after online publication and is updated daily on week days.
Initial download of the metrics may take a while.